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Comment by wolfgke | Hacker News Reader

> It is the hybrid open source library / closed source app that causes problems like this.

There can exist good reasons to deliver the application as binary even though it is open-source.

The difference rather is: Microsoft cares about binary compatibility while the developers of userland libraries on GNU/Linux do not.

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Agreed. As a former MS-focused engineer in a previous life, I was constantly surprised by how many executables just continued to work 20 years after authorship. It's a different set of tradeoffs than other OSs have made, but a really remarkable one.

Gog.com makes their living specifically by updating games that no longer work on modern versions of Windows.

> Gog.com makes their living specifically by updating games that no longer work on modern versions of Windows.

Many old games that GOG distributes are not written for Windows, but for DOS.

Most distros are distributed as binaries.

But since the source is available and the licenses allow distribution, it's much easier to just recompile the thing.

Binary compatibility is not valued if you can just recompile the source. Why waste brain cells maintaining compatibilty when the compiler can bake you a new compatible binary?

Because your users might be actually using more software than what you deem worthy to put in your distribution.

Most, if not all, distros have no vendor-level restrictions on repository choice, you can make your own.

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